5,000 Shands Patients Compromised in Identity Theft Incident

Published May 29th, 2013

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Gainesville, Fl. -- More than 5,000 patients' identities could be compromised from a shands employee who allegedly misused information.

Patients and parents of patients at the UF Pediatric Care Clinic, now known as UF Health Pediatrics, may have had personal information stolen including names, addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers.

The clinic, located at Tower Square in Gainesville, sent letters to 5,682 people warning them of the potential theft.

"Patient privacy is really important to the University of Florida. We take this really seriously, and we're taking all the measures that we can to exaine what we could do in the future to make sure that things like this don't happen," UF Health Communications Director Melissa Lutz Blouin says.

The employee who had access to the information has been fired and could face charges.

State and federal law enforcement officials are still investigating the incident as a part of what they suspect to be a statewide identity theft ring

UF is offering fraud resolution services to anyone who confirms identity theft associated with this incident.